I saw a recently that Edwin Snowden has
announced he’s ready to cut a deal with the United States. He’s apparently
grown weary of hiding out in Moscow. He’s even ready to do some jail time if we
let him come home.

Perhaps we should explain who we’re
talking about.

I’m talking about the man who leaked
thousands of confidential transcripts of American surveillance of other nations,
friends as well as foes. We were trying to make sure no one was plotting
another 9/11. Snowden seems to think his leak was a noble gesture. By interesting coincidence, in 1778 I had to
deal with another Snowden, named Jedediah. He thought he knew how to win the
American Revolution without any help from me and my Continental Army.

Why did he feel it was
his job to come up with this plan?

Snowden and his pal
Benjamin Harbeson were convinced that a regular army was not only
unnecessary, it was dangerous. It
threatened the liberty Tom Jefferson celebrated in the Declaration of
Independence. Like the current Snowden’s
attitude toward the CIA, Jedediah saw no need for an army that had to be paid
and fed. There were easier ways for free
men to win a war.

Were
there other Americans who believed this?

You
bet there were. You can start with a
famous name, Samuel Adams. His cousin
John leaned in the same direction. Another guy was Benjamin Rush, the
Philadelphia doctor who signed the Declaration and was convinced I was a lousy
general. Sam headed a party in Congress, who were determined to treat the army
with suspicion and dislike. For them, the word militia had a magical ring. Militia
were free men volunteering for a few weeks to defend their homes and families,
as they supposedly did on April 19, 1775. They didn’t sign away their freedom
for a three year enlistment like a regular – something that appalled these
moral purists.

How did your Snowden plan to win the Revolutionary
War?

His strategy was based on simple
arithmetic. He and his pal Harbeson checked the militia rolls of the state of
Pennsylvania. There were 70,000 men on
the list. In Philadelphia, the British had about 15,000 men – mercenaries,
Snowden called them. Free men could defeat mercenaries anytime, anywhere,
right? Especially if they outnumbered them 5-1.

Where were you and your
Continental Army at this point?

We were in a place called Valley Forge,
trying to figure out how to feed 10,000 men. When they didn’t get their daily
ration of bread and meat, they chanted “NO MEAT! NO BREAD! NO MEAT!” It sounded like the voice of doomsday to me
and General Nathanael Greene, who was doubling as quartermaster.

This didn’t bother your Snowden?

He was hanging out in Lancaster, about
forty miles away. That was the temporary capital of Pennsylvania. These local politicians spent most of their
time denouncing me and the Continental Army for letting the British capture
Philadelphia. When they weren’t calling
me names, they were writing a militia law that was so exquisitely fair, you
couldn’t raise ten men when you needed them in a hurry. Their government was
all about rights and almost nothing about responsibilities.

How were they going to win the war?

Snowden’s plan was so simple, he was
convinced it was brilliant. He wanted to call out every militiaman on the
state’s rolls. With 70,000 men, they were going to march on the British in
Philadelphia and call on them to surrender. If they said no, they were going to
slaughter them to the last man. Presto, the war was over!

What was wrong with that plan?

This
70,000 man militia army had to be fed three meals a day. Militia got just as
hungry as regulars. Maybe more so. It would take a week, maybe two weeks to
assemble this army. Pennsylvania is a
big state. If we were panicky when “NO MEAT!” resounded through Valley Forge,
you can imagine what five times that many hungry men would have sounded like
wherever they were camped. Unlike regulars, militia had little or no
discipline. They would have looted every farmhouse for dozens of miles around
Philadelphia. Neither Snowden nor his partner had given a moment’s thought to
how to feed them.

What did you do?

I
knew they wouldn’t take any orders from me. A civilian authority, such as the
Continental Congress, was different.
Behind the scenes, I convinced the Congress to stop them. They told
Snowden and his pal to take their magical arithmetic and go home.

What does this tell us about the 21st
Century Snowden?

He’s the same sort of arrogant type, who thinks his personal
opinion is superior to everyone else’s. Unfortunately, we didn’t stop this
Snowden before he inflicted serious damage on the country. If he wants to come home, he should be
prepared to spend ten or twenty years in prison, thinking about how he’s made
it easier for a foreign enemy to attack America.